Artwork: B is for Birds in the Bronx (Candida Alvarez)

From nycsubway.org

"The challenge of public art is what makes it interesting. As an artist who prefers to paint and draw, I enjoy the opportunity of placing my work in the world, where it is always available. Birds share air space with us, and many of us rarely pay attention to them. But they are here with us and for some they provide wisdom, insight and song. My birds are ordinary. I wanted to subvert them and make them invisibly large and regal. By doing that, the birds in their emptiness give attention to their transparency and how they hold a space for the trees, the bushes, the snow, the branches, the wind, the sky and the leaves to exist, like a still-life painting.where the space outside of the object really creates the form of the object. My birds are very still. They become templates of the possibility that wind and air filled them once and they have left a mark...like a footprint in the snow." -- Candida Alverez. Source: cuny.edu